


Mortis Memoriam

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 10:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18072149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: A cursed artifact erases Donald’s memory. And keeps erasing it.





	Mortis Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://mighty-ant.tumblr.com/)  
> 

The first thing he sees is white.

White walls, white sheets, and a white light above his head. It hurts his eyes to look at it, even when he blinks.

His first sensation is pain.

He looks down from the light to a sea of unfamiliar faces clustered around his bed. He can’t seem to their focus on their features; his gaze slides past each one of them, unable to linger with nothing anchoring him.

A cacophonous wave follows, words he only half understands.

“Unc _—_ ”

“ _—_ nald, how do you fe _—_ ”

“ _—_ right, lad?”

“D _—_ nald!”

White hot agony slices through his head. He doesn’t know if he makes a sound, but the chaos around him increases tenfold. Something warm dribbles from his nose, trailing down his beak.

“Wh _—”_

“ _—_ he’s bleedi _—_ ”

“Donald!”

The pain and the white and the noise fade to black, and he’s relieved.

He doesn’t know who Donald is.

In the space between two breaths, he forgets having heard the name at all.

 

The next time he wakes up, his vision remains dark. An expanse of stars stretches out above his head, hovering close but just out of reach. The stars are a child’s imagining, clumsily cut angles in yellow construction paper strewn across a blue velvet sky. He finds he doesn’t mind the sight of them.

There are edges to his vista, where if only he had the capacity he could draw it back like a curtain and reveal whatever hides behind the stars. Instead, those few stars continue to shine dully above his head, his silent companions.

There is a voice somewhere nearby, closer to him than the stars. The words mean little to him, but it’s more interesting that just staring at the expanse over his head.

“The artifact _—_ repetitive memory loss _—_ sense of self and _—_ impossible to make new _—_ ” The first voice is cold, like the bright white he first woke to. He almost prefers his stars. But then he hears the second voice.

“ _—_ take him home _—_ help him?” The second voice _bleeds_ , and it hurts to listen to. Where the first voice was lacking, the second is almost too much. It isn’t loud, but it’s jagged and worn, and their words burr together strangely. He doesn’t know why he finds it so comforting.

He catches a brief glimpse of a red coat, standing out like a beacon against a white room. The stars swallow the sight back up, but not before he feels the phantom sensation of a hand on his shoulder.

“ _—_ we’re going home, D—”

The stars shine a little brighter.

 

Sensation comes and goes, awareness blinking in and out like the stars over his head.

He isn’t aware of being moved, but the next time his consciousness expands beyond his stars, he is in a different room. The walls are dark. He sees the tall bed posts, and his feet under the blankets.

There’s a new voice, sitting somewhere to his right. He can see their red shirt, and little else. They’re reading aloud from a book, judging by the occasional sound of a flipping page. It’s a story about a dragon and a golden fleece, and he listens as well as he is able before the expanse of stars descends over him over more.

In his mind, the voice in red becomes the boy in red. When the stars pull back enough to see, to hear, the boy is often there. He usually tells stories, or reads aloud from books that make little sense. His voice sounds so young, and it shakes when he speaks for too long.

Most times, the boy in red is joined by blue and green.

The visits are louder, but he finds he doesn’t mind. He has trouble deciphering what blue says, but the energy and rapid pace is a comfort. Green is slower, speaks less than the other two, but hugs him at the end of every visit, without fail.

The sea of stars over his head gains definition, less a child’s proxy. Instead, the stars glimmer like holes cut in black canvas, masking some far away brilliance.

The boys continue to visit, and his awareness expands, inch by inch.

He learns to recognize the saltiness of broth, the warmth of sunlight on his face. Sometimes he catches a glimpse of a hand holding a spoon, or adjusting his blankets. He sees a top hat on the nightstand for a few moments.

Sometimes, when the curtain of stars pulls back enough for him to see, the room is dark. On these occasions, his eyes can never stay open for long, but his mind remains awake. Some part of him knows that if he were to turn his head, he would see real stars on the other side of the window.

He feels a hand holding his on top of the blankets. While his hand remains limp, the other shakes.

The second voice is there, the one that bleeds pain and comfort in a red coat. He remembers the coat, just as he remembers the voice. He tries harder to hear the words, to understand when it speaks.

The second voice tells stories too. Stories about a daring little girl and a brave little boy that don’t alway get along. About how one day they got lost in a maze, and their uncle was so afraid he’d never see them again.

The voice tells him about a mother and a sailor, adrift in faraway seas.

When the darkness is especially pronounced, and he cannot open his eyes at all, the second voice won’t stop apologizing. Begging forgiveness for a transgression that he does not understand.

The voice trembles as it whispers into darkness, always holding his hand.

“—over again, like Dell—couldn’t stop this, couldn’t save you eith— _sorry.”_

He doesn’t like it when the voice apologizes. _It’s not your fault,_ he isn’t able to say. _I forgive you,_ for what he doesn’t know.

“Come back to us, lad,” the voice says.

 _I’m right here,_ he thinks, but cannot say.

 

He receives more visitors, but he can’t say for how long. His personal expanse of stars sometimes seems frail as a gossamer veil, and he can understand every word, see everything but his visitors’ faces.

Pink joins the red, blue, and green; he can see the bow in her hair. She’s hesitant at first, quiet, but her presence becomes as familiar as the boys’. Her stories are ordinarily too long and rambling for him to understand, and it’s a point of pride when he manages to follow a tale about a lucky dime.

Other times, the curtain of stars is more of a brick wall, enclosing and suffocating. He can’t see anything other than the stars and the inky blackness that surrounds them, blazing so brightly in his mind that they burn away all memory of the voices, of red, blue, green, and pink.

Some unknowable amount of time later, the vise always eases. Memory trickles back in, like water from a blocked stream.

The boy in red reading him a story about windmills and knights, touching the back of his hand with light, hesitant fingers. Blue insisting that he can’t leave them too. Green’s hitching sob when he hugs him.

The second voice, apologies tripping off his tongue.

There are other voices, faceless bodies that come and go seemingly at random. He remembers them with varying levels of clarity.

A voice, heavy with self-importance, made thin by guilt and apology. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mc—have to let it run its course.”

Another voice, suave and coy, wrapped up in a polished green suit. His words belie his appearance, turning strained. A hand grips his arm, squeezing gently.

“We need you back, Double D—if you can hear me, we need you ba—”

The only trouble is that he hasn’t _gone_ anywhere. He’s right here, just out of reach. And no matter how much he strains, he can’t touch that starry expanse.

His stars shine like the real thing now, numbering in the hundreds. He’s certain that more appear every day, glinting sympathetically. It’s so close now, nearly pressing against his eyelids. If he could just reach out, and pull it aside, he could tell the voices to stop sounding so _sad_.

 

He comes back to himself without warning. It’s a little unremarkable, actually.

He forgot what his body felt like; the ache of his bad knee, the creak of his bad back. He curls his hands into fists with more effort than the motion should require. His body feel heavy, exhaustion already pawing at the back of his mind.

The stars overhead settle, glimmering faintly and finally, _finally,_ close enough to touch. With one hand, he grips the curtain of stars and tears down.

Donald opens his eyes.

He’s in his old bedroom in the mansion, from when he and Della had outgrown sharing their tower room. He only recognizes it because almost nothing has changed, besides being clean for once. His Geezer poster is still up, as is his collection of photographs over by the desk; he can make out himself and Della at Niagara Falls, him, José and Panchito at their graduation.

The window is open, letting in sunlight and a sweet smelling breeze.

Scrooge is sitting beside his bed, narrating a heavily embellished account of the time the three of them discovered El Dorado. He smiling, eyes crinkling at the corners. He hasn’t noticed Donald’s gaze on him.

“—and you were the one to discover it was actually the missing half of the map! Ach, not even Della or I had noticed, too wrapped up in what the guide had told us. I was so proud of you, lad! Centuries of explorers have searched for what you discovered by chance.”

“You forgot the part where I threw it onto the fire first.” Due to disuse, Donald’s voice is even rougher than usual. Scrooge stiffens, the knuckles in his fists standing out. “Della couldn’t stop laughing, and you complained about the burn hole for the rest of the week.”

Scrooge turns to look at Donald with excruciating slowness, expression wretched. He doesn’t seem to be breathing.

“Donald?” he whispers.

He manages a weary smile. “Hey, Uncle Scrooge.”

Scrooge stands up suddenly, his hands trembling at his sides. Moving almost too quick to follow, he wraps his arms around Donald’s shoulders, lifting him off the pillows.

His throat tightens and itches with tears, as his weak grip scrabbles for purchase on the back of Scrooge’s coat.

Scrooge is shaking, his embrace almost painfully tight. “You’re back,” he murmurs, voice thick with disbelief. “Sweet merciful heavens, you’re back.”

“I was never gone,” Donald promises, blinking as the tears welling up in his eyes trail down his cheeks.   
  
  



End file.
